American, Asian and European wind farming could take a serious hit from climate change

According to new climate modeling data, the Northern hemisphere's wind farms could see a dramatic downturn in productivity over the next hundred years, as climate change disrupts some of the key drivers that shape the world's wind patterns. The news is better down South.

Wind power generation is increasing at an average of 22 percent per year, much of it in the Northern hemisphere. But a climate researchers out of Boulder, Colorado, have warned that wind farm investors should pay heed to what climate change will mean for their power yields.

According to a paper released by Kristopher Karnauskas, Julie K. Lindquist and Lei Zhang, warmer temperatures at the North Pole will reduce the temperature difference between the arctic and the equator, a key driver of the strong winds that wind farms have relied on in the mid-latitude Northern hemisphere.

The team sees possible declines in wind energy production in key areas: Northern America, Japan, Mongolia and the Mediterranean moving toward the end of the century. "Europe is a big question mark," says Karnauskas. "We have no idea what we'll see there. That's almost scary, given that Europe is producing a lot of wind energy already."

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